Why Did CBS Ruin KFWB?

[Gregg]

Well, BRNout is right. KRLD is All-News from 5am to 8pm weekdays, as is WBZ. I do remember that for a while KRLD was running syndicated talk shows in middays and only doing All-News in AM and PM drive.

There is a difference between KRLD and WBZ. WBZ runs all news everyday 5am till 7 or 8pm, including weekends. KRLD only does a few hours of news on Sat. & Sun. mornings.

As for ratings, KRLD is by far the worst-rated large market All-News station in the country. It's tied for #31 in the latest ratings, not even earning a two-share. (Coincidentally it's tied with KRLD-FM, an All-Sports station.)

So my question stands. In the Sunbelt, KNX is #9, KRLD is #31, no All-News in Houston, Atlanta, Miami or Phoenix. Meanwhile in large non-Sunbelt markets, All-News is doing great.

What's going on in Sunbelt markets that they won't support All-News radio?


Gregg
[email protected]

 

[michael hagerty]

I do understand that most people between 18-35 do listen to FM more than the older market does.

It's not that older people don't listen to FM or prefer AM. It's that they will tolerate AM to get programming they're interested in. But as David notes, people under a certain age (David says 50, and I'm sure he's got the research to back it up, but my gut tells me it's more like 60) won't tolerate AM.

You'd have to get up around 90 to find someone who never has listened to FM and won't.

 

[michael hagerty]

So my question stands. In the Sunbelt, KNX is #9, KRLD is #31, no All-News in Houston, Atlanta, Miami or Phoenix. Meanwhile in large non-Sunbelt markets, All-News is doing great.

What's going on in Sunbelt markets that they won't support All-News radio?


Gregg
[email protected]

Transient populations, a large number of whom moved there to get away from stress, and, increasingly, a significant percentage of non-English speakers, which diminishes available cume. The costs of the format are so high, you need to be able to sell it at a premium...higher rates than a music station with comparable numbers...to make it profitable.

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

What's going on in Sunbelt markets that they won't support All-News radio?

Extending upon my prior post mentioning Mencken and Cash, I've been searching in vain for notes I took long ago in college about the "low information" characteristics of the population in the South.

My professor (a PhD. from Northwestern) cited research (it may have been from Northwestern or Missouri) performed in the 60's and 70's that showed the 13 states of the Confederacy, as well as Kentucky, had the lowest newspaper readership of any region of the country. As I recall, the study also showed that news magazines of the era (Time, Newsweek and USN&WR) had lower circulations there than elsewhere in the nation.

He commented that of the 10 generally-recognized elite newspapers of that time, the Louisville Courier-Journal was the only one from the South.

I wish I could find my notes from that class to provide more information as well as the title of that study. What I do recall is that Arizona, New Mexico and California were not part of the data set. It was confined to the Confederate states and Kentucky.

Although that research was done some 40 years ago and there have been substantial migratory and demographic changes (as well as major shifts in the media for information deliver), the conclusion was that news was not as high-value an item in the region as elsewhere.

 

[davideduardo]

My professor (a PhD. from Northwestern) cited research (it may have been from Northwestern or Missouri) performed in the 60's and 70's that showed the 13 states of the Confederacy, as well as Kentucky, had the lowest newspaper readership of any region of the country.

That's a simplistic view, to say the least. It's a snapshot, not a three-dimensional view.

The states of the confederacy had a lower educational level. They had a lower population density than the industrialized Northeast. While various generations in the Northeast grew up in homes where newspapers were readily available, in much of the rural south as well as in lesser educated city homes, newspapers were not nearly as important, accessible or in demand.

You can't go to the 60's and look at statistics without looking at the differences in history in the regions being compared.

He commented that of the 10 generally-recognized elite newspapers of that time, the Louisville Courier-Journal was the only one from the South.

Recognized by whom? And the Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans papers for starters? Or the function of city size vs. newspaper "greatness" since there could be said that there is a relationship between the economic power of a paper and its "recognition."

Although that research was done some 40 years ago and there have been substantial migratory and demographic changes (as well as major shifts in the media for information deliver), the conclusion was that news was not as high-value an item in the region as elsewhere.

And, as I said, that "conclusion" does not take into account the root causes for the differences.

 

[davideduardo]

It's not that older people don't listen to FM or prefer AM. It's that they will tolerate AM to get programming they're interested in. But as David notes, people under a certain age (David says 50, and I'm sure he's got the research to back it up, but my gut tells me it's more like 60) won't tolerate AM.

I was being kind... the slope in AM usage from age 60 down to age 50 is steep. And in the markets I track, the average age of AM listeners gets about a year older for every 18 months to two years of time that passes.

About 15 years ago, I programmed an LA AM station that bounced in and out of the top 10 in 25-54. Today, repeating that position would be virtually impossible.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

[Elite newspapers] Recognized by whom?

I did come across one of the sources cited by my journalism professor back in the 70's. Newspapers: The World's Elite lists "Merrill Elite Press Pyramid" as formulated by John C. Merrill, a professor of journalism at the University of Missouri (1969).

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,839738-1,00.html

The New York Times heads the list. In the second tier were the Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post. The third-ranking papers include the Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal, Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal.

So, yes, there was a second paper from the geographic South represented in the Herald. Merill defined the elite as
"...the concerned papers, the knowledgeable papers, the serious papers and the papers which serious people and opinion leaders in all countries take seriously."

 

[davideduardo]

The New York Times heads the list. In the second tier were the Christian Science Monitor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Washington Post. The third-ranking papers include the Baltimore Sun, Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal, Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal.

So, yes, there was a second paper from the geographic South represented in the Herald. Merill defined the elite as
"...the concerned papers, the knowledgeable papers, the serious papers and the papers which serious people and opinion leaders in all countries take seriously."

The Atlanta Constitution and the New Orleans Times-Picayune were also on the list, along with ones like the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Other than the papers that traditionally were regional or national (Christian Science Monitor, NY Times, Herald Tribune, Washington Post, WSJ, etc.) the other US papers were entrenched, successful papers in cities that had been fairly sizable since the turn of the last century.

Many sunbelt cities were relatively tiny in 1900... which is why we only add LA, Dallas and Houston to that list Merrill made.

But my concern is more about the term "elite" which brings up the sort of argument that was used to "protect" the classical format from change for a number of decades. "Elite" may have a certain appeal to academics, but the term does not always mean successful or even "good" at the local level. For usefulness in the 60's, I'd put the Traverse City Record Eagle ahead of the New York Times any day...

I'd really love to know what constitutes the difference between Merrill's "serious people" and the rest of us folks.

 

[KeithE4]

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

All-news in Phoenix was tried four times by three stations. All failed. KTAR's Action News (they used that branding for both radio and TV) was the least-unsuccessful - it lasted 4 or 5 years in the mid '70s.

 

[michael hagerty]

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

All-news in Phoenix was tried four times by three stations. All failed. KTAR's Action News (they used that branding for both radio and TV) was the least-unsuccessful - it lasted 4 or 5 years in the mid '70s.

Thanks, Keith! I didn't know.

 

[davideduardo]

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

All-news in Phoenix was tried four times by three stations. All failed. KTAR's Action News (they used that branding for both radio and TV) was the least-unsuccessful - it lasted 4 or 5 years in the mid '70s.

Wasn't the first Larry Mazursky's affiliate of the NBC all news network on KRUX?

 

[KeithE4]

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

All-news in Phoenix was tried four times by three stations. All failed. KTAR's Action News (they used that branding for both radio and TV) was the least-unsuccessful - it lasted 4 or 5 years in the mid '70s.

Wasn't the first Larry Mazursky's affiliate of the NBC all news network on KRUX?

KPHX 1480 was first, in 1972. KTAR's effort killed it in '74 - KPHX being a 500 watt daytimer at the time didn't help. KRUX was with NBC NIS in 1976-77. The last all-news effort was also on 1360 - KNNS in 1992. It became sports-talker KGME in 1994 (now XTRA Sports 910).

 

[michael hagerty]

There's also the overall change in society. If you'd launched an all-news in Phoenix in 1971, I'd bet most 50-year old businessmen would have driven home listening to it. 40 years later, the 50 year olds are listening to Nine Inch Nails on KUPD.

All-news in Phoenix was tried four times by three stations. All failed. KTAR's Action News (they used that branding for both radio and TV) was the least-unsuccessful - it lasted 4 or 5 years in the mid '70s.

Did anyone actually try a fully local all-news in Phoenix, though, or were they all heavy on network stuff like NIS?

Wasn't the first Larry Mazursky's affiliate of the NBC all news network on KRUX?

KPHX 1480 was first, in 1972. KTAR's effort killed it in '74 - KPHX being a 500 watt daytimer at the time didn't help. KRUX was with NBC NIS in 1976-77. The last all-news effort was also on 1360 - KNNS in 1992. It became sports-talker KGME in 1994 (now XTRA Sports 910).

 

[recto101]

How about occupying 3 XTMR's for FM simulcast of KNX or KFWB to impove the numbers will that work?